A whole new class of players joined the Upper House this month, and with a record number of cross-benchers – 18, including the Greens – there will be deals-a-plenty and the “spin cycle” on overdrive. Cards will be kept close to chests; cards will be put out on the table; and, as the last week has shown, cards will just as quickly be taken away. While PUP leader Clive Palmer appeals to pensioners by saying he will block the Government’s $7 GP co-payment, so that “those ladies” can “have their chocolate and go to the cinema”, let’s crunch the critical numbers with a round of ‘Senate Bingo’. [Insert archaic rolling wheel of bingo […]

By Susie Russell September 1, 2013 The image of Nero fiddling while Rome burned comes to mind. Seven days out from the Federal election and so little discussion of what is at stake. The environment looks like being burned at the stake as part of Tony Abbott’s witch-hunt. ‘The greatest moral issue of our time’, climate change, is now a petty squabble over how much to pay the big polluters to keep polluting while Tony gathers his ‘green army’ to plant seedlings in a landscape parched by drought while the big trees that hold the key to ‘drought-proofing’ the water supplies of the coastal cities are targeted for more chopping. […]